Pixel Art Ice Lance: Pixel art ice lance: frost and shards gather into a crystal spear inside two rings, it flies on a misty frost trail and sticks in a target, then bursts into tumbling ice shards, mist and snow.

Pixel Art Ice Lance

Pixel art ice lance: frost and shards gather into a crystal spear inside two rings, it flies on a misty frost trail and sticks in a target, then bursts into tumbling ice shards, mist and snow. Use it for frost bolts, ice spears and freezing projectile skills in pixel-art RPGs and action games.

Pixel Art Ice Lance is a pixel art effect that loops seamlessly every 2.8 seconds, drawn on a 480 by 270 canvas at 3x pixels. It is built from 33 particle emitters and 8 glowing strokes. Most layers blend additively, so it glows on dark backgrounds. Some particles draw ribbon trails.

Free download with a transparent background, cropped to the effect, 84 frames at 30 fps. Use it in commercial games, no credit needed.

Licence: use it in any project, including paid commercial games such as a game sold on Steam. There is no per-project licence to buy and no credit needed. Terms.

Roblox: the download is a flipbook for a ParticleEmitter. Set FlipbookLayout to Grid8x8, FlipbookMode to OneShot and Lifetime to 2.8, then emit one particle per cycle. Roblox setup.

REMIX WITH AI

Try:

Left empty, it just opens in the agent, free. Each change is one AI build, and you start with free builds.

Engine data for Unity, Godot, GameMaker and Aseprite comes with a plan: open it in the studio.

OPEN IN THE STUDIO

Change the colours, timing or size, or export for Unity, Godot 4, GameMaker, Phaser, PixiJS and Aseprite.

Try variations: new colours, motion and shapes of this effect, free in the studio.

FRAME BY FRAME

8 evenly spaced moments across the 2.8 s loop.

Pixel Art Ice Lance at 8 moments, from 0 s to 2.45 s

HOW IT'S MADE

Pixel Art Ice Lance is pixel art, drawn at 3x pixels so it sits on the same grid as your sprites, and built from 33 particle emitters. Techniques worth a look: glowing strokes traced along shapes, ribbon trails, sub-emitters set off by other particles, collisions and post filters (bloom and colour grade). 3 scene layers (ground and props) show in the studio for context and stay out of every export.

It loops seamlessly every 2.8 s, and 27 of its layers fire in bursts, so it pulses instead of flowing evenly. Start times are staggered from 0 s to 1.2 s, so the layers arrive one after another. To change its colour, select "Impact glow" in the studio and edit Colour A and Colour B. Size on the same layer sets how big its particles are. Pixel size in the Pixel art panel sets how chunky it looks.

Layers, in draw order

  1. Charge floor lightparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.05 s. It grows as it ages. Colour: cyan.
  2. Cold floor lightparticles / additiveA single particle at 1 s. It grows as it ages. Colour: blue.
  3. Frozen floorparticlesA single particle at 1.04 s. It grows as it ages. Colour: blue.
  4. Frost rim far, Frost rim nearstroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a circle. It wobbles like unstable energy.
  5. Charge glowparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.03 s. It grows as it ages. Colour: cyan.
  6. Frost motesparticles / additiveA stream of streaks from a ring, its rate keyframed over the loop. Colour runs from blue to white over each life.
  7. Cold wispsparticlesA stream of smoke puffs from a disc, its rate keyframed over the loop. They shrink as they age. Colour: pale blue.
  8. Launch ring back, Launch ring 2 back, Launch ring front +1stroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a circle. It is drawn as dashes.
  9. Frost trail, Lance glowparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.75 s. Colours range between cyan and blue.
  10. Frost trail core, Release glowparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.75 s. Colour: pale cyan.

25 more layers are in the studio.

DETAILS

Length
2.8 seconds, seamless loop
Canvas
480 x 270, pixel art at 3x
Layers
33 emitters and 8 glowing strokes
Blend
Mostly additive (glows)
Colours
whitecyanpale cyanblue
Sprites
Kenney Smoke Particles by Kenney (CC0)
Tags
pixel art, pixel, vfx, ice lance, ice, frost, projectile, spell, shatter, impact, rpg

USING IT IN YOUR GAME

Phaser, PixiJS
The PNG sheet is a plain grid of frames that both can slice. A TexturePacker JSON atlas comes with a plan, from the studio.
Unity
Import the PNG sheet as a Sprite with Mode set to Multiple and slice it, or open the effect in the studio for a ready-made grid.
Godot 4, GameMaker, Aseprite
Open it in the studio and pick your engine in Export: with a plan, it writes the files that engine imports.
Web and chat
The GIF plays anywhere; the APNG keeps soft edges on any background.
Blend mode
This effect is made of light. For the same glow in your game, draw the sprite with additive blending, or export it on black from the studio for additive shaders.

Step by step: Unity, Godot 4, Roblox, GameMaker, Phaser and PixiJS, Aseprite, Web games (live runtime). Drawn with additive blending: see glow effects without a black box.

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